Tuesday, March 01, 2005
Today's travesty of constitutional law brought to you by....
The opinion in Roper v. Simmons was not only a travesty of constitutional law, it was a travesty of law, period.
The only comfort -- slight, at that -- is that the majority opinion displaces law with pure whimsy. States should therefore take comfort that they can ignore today's ruling, just as the Mo. Supreme Court ignored then-binding federal precedent. For, if a state court can re-examine the question of "contemporary values" and determine that the federal constitution makes it unlawful to impose capital punishment for a crime committed by a minor, surely a state executive is free to do the same. A governor can re-examine the question in the future and ignore presently-"binding" federal precedent by ordering his executioner to put a minor to death.
I'd give just about anything to the state that fries a minor in accordance with the above opinion. Kennedy makes me physically ill.
The only comfort -- slight, at that -- is that the majority opinion displaces law with pure whimsy. States should therefore take comfort that they can ignore today's ruling, just as the Mo. Supreme Court ignored then-binding federal precedent. For, if a state court can re-examine the question of "contemporary values" and determine that the federal constitution makes it unlawful to impose capital punishment for a crime committed by a minor, surely a state executive is free to do the same. A governor can re-examine the question in the future and ignore presently-"binding" federal precedent by ordering his executioner to put a minor to death.
I'd give just about anything to the state that fries a minor in accordance with the above opinion. Kennedy makes me physically ill.
# posted by Anonymous : 8:19 PM
